Why do countries that have socialist revolutions begin to turn into totalitarian governments?

Most of the socialist regimes in the world were not started by revolutions. They were created by military coups. Although these military coups were often widely supported there weakness was the lack of political mobilisation of the public. On the one hand this meant that the appuratus of the state as expanded as it was in economic management they became paternal and controlling. Worst of all people in the positions often used the technical power of the state to enrich themselves. This lead to a controlling self enriching bureaucracy to take hold of the state. and in some cases such as Mao's case the armed forces were already controlled by such a bureacracy topped by Mao.

Genuine socialist revolutions are rare. The Russian Revolution is probably the only example of this. In that case the difference is that it is not a small armed force that take power. Instead the masses 'take power'. In Russia they formed their own government organs called the soviets. These were representative bodies of workers and soldiers that made democratic decisions about political moves and about the economy. In the midst of the war the Bolshevik Party became a majority in these and when the situation was ripe and the workers and soldiers loyal to them and the soviets occupied the important goverment buildings and factories and subordinated them to the Soviets. So instead of a political military bureacracy managing the economy. The management was intertwined with the soviets that at this time were controlled by the Bolsheviks and another political party.

However like all revolutions the russian revolution wasnt conducive to a peaceful resolution in democracy. Immediately after many of the political factions and even socialists began to arm against the soviets to crush them. Eventually even the party in coalition with the bolsheviks left the soviets and armed against them. For this time they still hard majority support. These parties were banned obviously for taking up arms. This established a legal dictatorship in russia cause by practical circumstances and civil war. This was tightened as the civil war became more and more vicious in fact it was the most vicious in history. And it was funded and back by western powers and japan.

The social basis for a dictatorship was not caused by equality but by the immense draining of the political base of the soviets as they were killed off by the war as were many important party leaders. There was no ever vigilant technical movement to check the bureaucracy and instead a group of patriotic young supporters duped and brought into the soviets and party. Without the political vigilance they became yes men. But more decisively: Russia like all countries were socialism came about was poor. Poverty meant that the masses were uneducated so they were even more easily deceived technical bureacracy they were less able to criticise it. It made it easy for it to enrich itself. As well as this the lack of resources meant that the bureaucracy was in a constant fight to ration resources and hold back those who wanted more. In the end the holding back of people lead to the ration freedom and even life to its supporters.

This is why the leaders of the bolsheviks were so obsessed with Permanent revolution and spreading socialism to wealthy countries. They agreed with the origonal Marxist doctrine that socialism could only be established in the most advanced capitalist country with the most skilled workers such as in Europe or America.

unfortunetly the revolution that did spread to Germany failed. Because of a lack of timely action and was crushed by militarists destroying the german soviet councils. Some say this was unavoidable, others say it was because it lack a disciplined party like the bolshevik party.

The flipside to this explanation is maybe bureaucracy of such magnitude will always end in dictatorship. The complex technical information will automatically generate a hierarchy that is blind to human need and produces privilege. These are the views of German Sociologist Max Weber. Called 'rationalisation.

http://www.stefan-szczelkun.org.uk/phd402.htm - weber

http://www.socialistparty.net/faq2.htm - russia

Various reasons. However often revolutions understood as socialist by the outside world are not from the start. An example where a genuine socialist revolution degenerated into totalitarianism was the USSR but other examples such as China or Cuba people like to give were basically wrong from the start.

A lot can be said about what happened in the USSR but no one can deny Stalin was an exceptionally ruthless individual, not just some bad person, and the way Lenin's illness prevented him from removing Stalin all together is just really bad luck

Socialism is a very pure idea but also difficult. A lot of people who like the idea or the goals, those who are sympathetic, let idealism get in the way of concrete knowledge and insight. A revolution built on a lack of revolutionary theory is doomed to fail.

Socialism is not established in a day and there are hostile class forces that undermine it from the start. Again this is why only the masses can guarantee the good outcome of the revolution in my view. A good leader can not establish socialism if the population does not understand the goal. Even if they support him and he's popular, decent, if people don't understand the dynamics of the class struggle the door to counter revolution remains wide open

Venezuela is an example of this but also of why it is so hard to go from capitalism to socialism. Who can deny all the good Chavez has done? Venezuelans have no interest now in anyone telling them this is not socialism and Chavez is clearly a Democrat and good guy. Yet after him, his successor can take this system and turn it totalitarian.

So my answer is lack of education, specially Marxist theory, and broad conscious mass support and involvement from the beginning which is different than just broad support

The free societies had problems but basically abandoned "the revolution" after it was over. The US, England and France were broad based grass roots revolutions.

England had a series of civil wars resulting in a slow accretion of rights against the monarch. france executed the aristocracy then had to deal with Napoleon Bonaparte. The US was a group of independent colonies that were loathe to give up their independence and struggled through "the articles of confederation"

Most of the rest were relatively small (oligarchy) groups that used military force to overthrow a similarly small group of rulers. So they threw out the fat hogs so the skinny hogs could have a turn at the trough. Basically no real change for the general populace.

Because collectivism of any sort doesn't work.

I don't understand how people fail to realize this, especially in today's day and age, it's a ME mentality all over the place. Everyone wants to be the best, be more known than someone else, be richer, be more powerful almost to validate themselves amongst society than to actually accomplish a personal goal.

Furthermore, man doesn't operate like that (collectivist). Think back (generally) to how law was developed. When man was around and law didn't exist, he simply took what he wanted from the weaker class. It took law to stop this from happening and to protect the weaker--albeit larger--group of man. Even then, it took a belief in a Supreme Being that you couldn't question--God--to literally put the Fear of God into people. Think of it like this...you break a law, you answer to a judge. When the Rule of Law was God, you may answer to a judge, but ultimately, everyone answered to God, and it's not like you can just call him up and argue your case. Nowadays, we don't even have that anymore (<--not my point though).

We can't give the ultimate power to humanity because humanity is incapable of governing itself. There will ALWAYS be someone who wants more. There will ALWAYS be evil people in this world...with 7 billion people in it, it's statistically inevitable. You could have a 99.9% cooperation rate within collectivism, but if 0.1% finds a way to subvert it, they will, and they will have unfettered power to become a totalitarian regime.

It's socially, and humanly impossible, thus, it's never worked the way it was planned in it's entire existence. That's why everything like Communism and Socialism "is good on paper". Do you think the Chinese are happy? Cubans? Venezuelans? Couldn't have been too great in the U.S.S.R. either, right?

IT. WON'T. WORK.

EDIT:

Because the Native Americans never fought amongst each other? Come on...

Plus...I've never heard of a Casino being built "on the land of the people". If it truly was "the land of the people" and it belonged to everyone, then surely, the Native Americans wouldn't have felt the need for protected Reservations and special status. Now, you can say that they had to adapt due to Anglo invaders, however, how is one single person bringing down socialism any different from an entire political ideology doing it? The point is, it doesn't work, it hasn't worked, and even in your flawed example, it didn't work.

Because it was a revolution, not because it was socialist. I can't think of a case of a capitalist revolution in recent history. Let me know if you can think of one. My point is that whenever you have a revolution, you have a power vacuum which in turn opens the door to a totalitarian government.

Socialism is only a stepping stone toward communism. Under communism the individual isn't free to pursue their own interests. Only those in power have the freedom to pursue their own interests. This goes against human nature. Totalitarianism is the only way to control the masses under such an oppressive system.

The key word here is revolution -- I think countries that are successful social democracies become that way through the democratic process, not revolution. Also, countries that never were democracies in the first place have a harder time implementing the concept.

You have to be lucky enough to have the right people involved right from the beginning.

For example, historians are still surprised that George Washington refused to run for a third term in office... there were even Americans who wanted him to become King!

Odd, I was thinking something very similar yesterday.

The answer I kind of settled on was that socialist / communist revolutions are essentailly based on theft where those who bring the revolution want to take something from someone, which requires ongoing force. Revolutions for liberty depend on people taking care of themselves, a much free-er condition.

Uh, MANY, possibly most countries that have any revolution turn dictatorial.

Countries that successfully move toward socialism usually have done so democratically, not by revolution.